


Damerey Short Stories

by rinskiroo



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Character Swap, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Canon Universe, Comfort, F/M, First Order Poe Dameron, Fluff, Friendship, Memory Loss, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tropes, porgs, prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-15 17:59:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 18,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13618674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinskiroo/pseuds/rinskiroo
Summary: A collection of prompts and tropes from the SWWA February 2018 writing event.





	1. Huddling for Warmth

Rey stared at the refracted image looking back at her.  She bobbed left, then right; squatted and watched her reflection warp into a pudgy caricature of herself.  The ice caves on Ilum were all sorts of interesting.

And cold.  So indescribably cold.

Sure, it got cold at night in the Jakku desert, but not like this.  Not down to the bone, snot-sicles hanging off your lip cold.  _It_ _’s all right,_ she thought as she pulled her hood tighter around her head.  _I_ _’ve got the Force._

Somewhere, from the great beyond, she thought she heard snickering.

She stood at the entrance of the cave and took a sharp, frigid breath and tried to shake off the doubt.  The Force.  It was telling her there were still crystals on this planet.  Ones that could be used in the forging of a new lightsaber.  She just had to keep focus on her goal.  No distractions, just… straight on ahead.  As soon as her toes thawed and got her feet moving again.

“Rey!”  a voiced shouted from behind her.  A second later, the owner of the voice grabbed her arm and yanked her back.

“Poe!”  Rey gasped and pushed against him.  “What was that for!”

“I told you not to stand right there,”  he said, sounding rather cross.  His head jerked upward slightly and she looked to see the razer sharp pikes of ice hanging precariously over the entrance of the cave.

“I’m not one of your pilots, Dameron,”  she huffed as she carefully, but quickly stepped through the maw of the cave.  A keen eye on the icicles above as Poe followed her in.  Though, she did regard the warning, and probably should have remembered he had said it earlier, she still didn’t appreciate his tone.  Rey wished Finn had been the one to accompany her to Ilum, but his expertise on the First Order was needed with what was left of the Resistance.

Instead, she got Poe Dameron, whom she thought of just fine, but he was obviously more suited to zipping around in an X-Wing and not tromping through the snow.  It seemed they were both a bit out of their element.

“Just slow down,”  he called after her once they made it inside the cave.  “We don’t know what kind of creatures—”

“The cave’s empty,”  she told him.  And it was, as far as she could tell.  The Force, while not exactly new to her, using it in different ways was.  Finding lifeforms came easy to her, however, and she wasn’t feeling any other presence here.  Just the two of them, and the resonating crystals deep in this cavern.

At least there was no wind in the cave, it had that much going for it, but the tunnels stretched on forever.  Poe kept cracking little light sticks and leaving them on the ground to mark their path.  That was clever—perhaps it was a good thing he came with her.  He had tried to make some small talk, but Rey told him she needed to focus on the crystals.  It was mostly true—she did think that having a conversation with him would be far too distracting.  Talking to him reminded her how likable he was, how well his charming personality complimented his pleasant face.  Yes—definitely too much of a distraction.

When they finally found the large crystal formation amidst a massive cavern deep inside what must have been a mountain, Rey smiled wide and let out a relieved laugh.  Almost as if she didn’t believe they’d find it.  She pulled a vibropick from her pack and stepped up to the crystal structure.

“Careful…”  Poe warned.

She was tempted to roll her eyes under her hood, but refrained and instead nodded.  After trying to get a good angle to cut a shard out, she realized her bulky winter wear was too much of a hindrance.  Deciding to risk the cold for just a few minutes of better dexterity, she dumped the large coat and hood and climbed up the jagged surface.  Below her, she could hear Poe sucking in air between his teeth.  In the Force, she could feel his sudden nervousness, his worry.

“I’ll be quick,”  she told him.  “Catch me if I fall.”

That in no way assuaged his worry, but he moved closer and held his arms out to brace against her to help her keep her balance.

After just a couple minutes, her fingers were trembling in the cold as she carefully ran the electric edge of the pick around a weak part in the rock.  It made a decisive pop as the shard came free from the rest of the formation, causing Rey to flinch back slightly in surprise.  But Poe was there, his elbows locking to keep her from falling backwards onto him.

“Got it?”  he asked.

“Yeah, help me down.”

Poe took the pick from her and dropped it to the ground before taking her arm and helping her step down the few steps she’d climbed up.  He cupped his hands around hers around the crystal and let out a disappointed sound.  “Even through my gloves, your hands are frozen.  Get your coat back on and I’ll light a fire.”

“Are you always this bossy?”  she asked as she pulled her coat and gloves and hat back on as he dug the quick-fire-kit out of his bag.

“Usually.”  He grinned at her as he got the fire going.  Soon, there was a little orange and red spark of warmth with ribbons of smoke rising high up into the cavern.

Rey scooted closer to the small fire and held her hands out over it, the crystal tucked safely away in her pocket.  She could feel the beats of the Force resonating in it.  It seemed to be humming with a life all its own now.  Or perhaps it was reacting to the new Force signatures in its presence.  It was all very complicated.

“Are you okay?”  Poe asked.  “You got a funny look on your face.”

Rey looked over at him and frowned, then stuck out her tongue.  She’d give him a funny look.  “Just thinking,”  she said after a moment.  “And cold.”

Poe chuckled and scooted slightly towards her.  “Probably be warmer if we, you know, share body heat.”

Rey raised an eyebrow at him and for just a second she was sure she caught him a little flustered, but he shrugged his shoulders like it was no big deal.  “We can, if you’re cold.”

“I mean, it is cold, but it’s up to you.”

With a shake of her head, she scooted the rest of the way next to him until they were shoulder to shoulder.  She squeezed in as close as she could, his arm wrapping around her shoulders.  “It is _freezing_ ,”  she said through nearly-chattering teeth.

“I think space is warmer than this planet.”

They huddled together in the ice cave and it was just a bit warmer.  A very, very small bit.


	2. Character Can't Sleep

Rey didn’t dream.  Not the way “normal” people dreamed, anyway.  Finn had told her about his dreams—sometimes being back on a First Order ship or with his friends or a holo-drama he remembered watching back when there were things such as “down days.”  Rose said she dreamt of the insides of droids.  Pieces fitting neatly back together… but then there was always one part leftover she couldn’t remember where it went.  It was very stressful, she admitted.

Rey didn’t have dreams like that.  Her unconscious mind didn’t pull up past events and warp them around into caricatures of themselves.  She didn’t dream about the sands of Jakku or her overturned walker.  Didn’t have nightmares about not having enough food or having been captured by Kylo Ren, twice.  Her dreams were of things she’d never seen, sometimes events that had not yet happened.  They were echoes in the Force—other people’s memories and visions.

She tried to explain it once, the day they’d inexplicably sat around talking about dreams, but they didn’t get it.  Finn asked her if Luke was there, when she dreamt about the island, but she had been talking about before she met him.  Before she had even met Finn.  Rey didn’t correct him.

As she rolled off the mattress and pulled on her cloak, she ruminated on the fragments of the not-dream still clinging to the corners of her mind.  These things usually made little sense and were more images and feelings rather than coherent thoughts.  She filed it away in the closet of her mind—maybe one day she’d have a clearer picture.

It was early, still before the sun.  The remnants of the Resistance would still be huddled in their cots scattered about the _Falcon_ and the encampment around the ship.  There would be a few guards, likely dozing upright, in this corner of this moon that they were hidden away on.  She’d have a little while of quiet to herself before the day started.

She stepped down the ramp of the _Falcon_ and indeed she had passed several sleeping bodies.  A man with a helmet and a blaster strapped to his back gave her a slight nod—seemed she had been wrong about the dozing sentries.  She nodded back and started walking out beyond the perimeter of their camp to find a good flat stone to sit on and meditate.  What she found, however, was someone she had not expected to be awake so early.

“I didn’t realize you were on guard duty this morning, Captain.”

Poe turned towards her and blinked, looking rather out of sorts.  His hair was tousled and his eyes looked a bit droopier than usual, even in the low light.  “Nah, I was just… waiting for the sun.  Need that vitamin D, you know.”

“I was just going to meditate for awhile, but you’ve got this spot, so I’ll find another.”

“Oh, is this your spot?”  he said, almost looking like he forced that grin.  Rather unlike him.  He got to his feet, though wobbled a bit as he stood.  She laughed lightly as he played it off and swept his arms towards the rock.  “Your throne, my lady.”

“I guess you’re not really a morning person.”  She smiled as she sat on the rock, crossing her legs and folding her hands inside of her cloak.

He grunted slightly and reached up to run a hand through his hair.  “Haven’t been to sleep yet, actually.”

“Oh?”  She watched him for a moment as he started to walk away, hands in his pockets, face pointed to the ground.  “Want to talk about it?”  Rey wasn’t sure why she asked.  This was supposed to be her pleasant quiet time where she could collect herself before the day.  Before people started asking her odd questions and expecting her to have some divine knowledge.  She _needed_ this time, but Poe looked so exhausted, and like he needed something, too.

He turned and glanced back her way.  He seemed to be debating with himself if he really wanted to talk, share what was troubling him.  She wondered if it was dreams that bothered him.  The trauma he had suffered at being captured, at crashing into the Jakku desert, at the loss of so many of his friends.  Were his dreams the “normal” sort where he relived the horrible things in his past?  Or did he dream of a terrible future where they lost what little they had left?

“We don’t have to talk,”  she offered.  “You can sit with me, if you want.”

He took a step back towards her, hands still in his pockets, but a small smile just barely on his lips.  “Think there’s room?”

Rey grinned back and nodded, scooting over to make space for him.  “Have you tried meditation before?”

“No, I didn’t make it into Jedi school.  Plus I was never a fan of the uniforms.”

She laughed at his flippant remarks and nudged him with her shoulder.  “Meditation can be good for anyone.  You just… breathe.  Let go of all the pent up things in your chest—fear, anxiety, everything.  Let it float out into the sky.  Until it’s just you, and the sun.”

While she spoke, she followed her own instruction and opened herself up to the Force around her.  She let go of the anxiousness and self-doubt, and left only space for hope and determination.  Poe had been taking deep breaths next to her as she talked, but his breathing changed as she verbally led him through the routine. When she glanced over at him, his head had drooped to the side, nearly hitting her shoulder and he was letting out quiet little snores.

Rey smiled and let him relax against her, feeling some of the tension leave his shoulders.  She looked out towards where the sun was beginning to peak up over the horizon and wished him happy dreams of the stars and not whatever had kept him up all night.


	3. Character is Turned Into a Cat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This kind of turned out more OT3 than Poe/Rey...? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

“FINN!  FIIIIIINNNNNNN!!!!!”  Poe tore through the jungle, racing back towards where they had landed the _Falcon_ on this strange and creepy world.

It had seemed fine at first, just a bit foggy and smelled kind of weird, but somewhere there was supposed to be an underground munitions bunker.  Weapons for the Resistance, and maybe other supplies.  They had to find it, no matter how funny it smelled.

But now, something had gone wrong.  So terribly, awfully wrong.

“FINN!”  Poe yelled again for his friend as he burst through the thick foliage.

Finn jumped to his feet, blaster rifle at the ready to shoot whoever was chasing his friends.  “Where’s Rey?!”

“I—I—”  Poe jerked his arms back and forth, waving around the ball of fluff in his hands.  Realizing that he was shaking it, he gasped and stopped, and thrust it towards Finn.  “She drank something.  _Drank it_.  I told her not to!”

“Poe.”  Finn approached his friend cautiously and firmly asked,  “Where’s Rey?”

“Here,”  Poe said, thrusting the creature at Finn.

A small head with pointed triangle ears turned to look at him.  It blinked big brown eyes and then it seemed to _smile_ and let out the longest purr that vibrated its whole body while it tried to squirm out of Poe’s hands.  “Why does this cat have Rey’s sash tied around its neck?”

“I didn’t want to lose her in case there were other cats.  You know, so I could tell them apart.”  Poe pulled the creature back into his arms and started fussing with the strip of tan cloth.  “Do you think it’s too tight?  Is it hurting her?”

Finn glanced back behind Poe, as if hoping Rey was still somewhere behind him about to pop out from the dense jungle.  Poe watched as a thousand emotions passed over his friend’s face, and finally, resignation.  “Are you saying _Rey_ is a _cat_?”

“Yes?”

“How do we _fix_ it—her?”

“I was hoping it would just wear off or something.  Ow!”  Poe yelped and pulled his hand back as tiny claws came out and dug into his skin, making him drop ~~the cat~~ Rey.  She hadn’t scratched or bitten at him yet, but it seemed she had figured out what sort of action would get him to do what she wanted.

Rey pranced on four legs, as if she had always had them, over to where BB-8 was rolling down the ramp of the _Falcon_.  She crouched down on the grass, practically slithering towards the droid.  Finn sounded like he was trying to hold back a laugh, watching Rey sneak up on the round astromech that was now much bigger than her, but Poe just looked on horrified.

Though BB-8 had obviously detected the feline movement in the grass, he whistled a startled noise and rolled backwards when the cat leapt at him and swatted at his antenna with her paws.  Then she pranced off to the side again, tail swishing in the air.

“We should go back, inspect the place where she drank this—whatever it was.  Maybe we can find clues or an antidote.  Beebee-ate can analyze stuff like that, right?”

BB-8 chirped and nodded his dome back and forth.

“Okay, good plan,”  Poe said.  “Let’s get Rey and go back—where’d she go?”

From inside the _Falcon_ , a porg shrieked and flew on tiny wings out the hatch.

“Well, at least we’ll finally get rid of those things,”  Poe said.

Finn nodded, seemingly satisfied with the bonus of maybe getting rid of the small bird infestation.  The Ahch-To natives were cute, but man did they smell.  And eat.  Everything.  Another crash from inside the ship jolted both men back into action.

“Here, kitty, kitty…”  Poe said as they crept through the corridors of the old freighter.

“Do you think she’s still Rey, or does she think she’s actually a cat?”

“Surprisingly, this is my first human to feline transmutation.  Not really aware of the technical specifications of such a… thing.”

They followed the trail of destruction left behind by their small companion.  Knocked over knickknacks that had been left out.  A cup of caf was now spilled on the floor.  A porg nest had been trounced, feathers still floating in the air.  Another crash led them into the galley where they spotted a tail swishing from inside a cabinet.

A canister of crackers fell to the floor as Rey pushed it out of the way of whatever she was going after.  There were some happy-sounding meows as the two men listened to the rending of plastic.  When Rey emerged from the cabinet, she had a mouthful of dried fish.

“Figures she’d go right for the food,”  Finn said with a laugh.  “Okay, you got your snack.  Come on down now.”

But cat-Rey deftly evaded the two trying to catch her.  She scampered up Finn’s arm, jumped to Poe’s head, and then landed somewhere behind them before flouncing away deeper into the ship.

“New plan: lock the doors until she tires out and then catch her.”

Finn slapped Poe on the shoulder and nodded.  “Good plan.”

It was not a good plan.  They shut the doors and managed to keep track of Rey via the sounds of porg screams and things crashing to the ground, but they never got hands on her.  Both Finn and Poe had collapsed onto the couch long before the cat ever seemed to tire out.  Poe’s head drooped onto Finn’s shoulder and he was near tears from exhaustion—and the fact that his dear friend may be stuck as a cat forever.

“Okay, Plan C: take a break.  Recharge.  She has to stop soon.”

“Have you _met_ Rey?”  Poe groaned.  “Even Beebee-ate’s plugged in for the night.”

Rey did stop, eventually, sometime after Finn and Poe had fallen asleep leaned up against each other.  She wedged herself in between them, pressing into Poe’s thigh until she was certain it was good and soft enough for sleeping.  Roused slightly, but perhaps still asleep, she was rewarded with scratches behind her ears.  And while Rey as a person wasn’t so used to all this physical attention, she found that as a cat it was much easier to demand and accept all the affection she wanted.

In the morning, Finn woke up to the strange pressure on his chest and a site that made his entire body warm.  He fumbled around for the blanket that had fallen onto the floor and draped it over the now-human (and naked) Rey before nudging Poe awake.

“What do we _do_?”  he whispered at Poe who, once he realized what had happened, looked equal parts relieved and flustered.

“Try not to get a boner?”

“Poe!”

“Finn!”

In her sleep, Rey lifted her hand and licked the back of it, then rubbed it across ears.


	4. Hiding in a Closet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This went places.

“Did you get it?”  Rey asked eagerly as soon as Poe slid down the ladder of his X-Wing.

“Aren’t you impatient?”  Poe grinned at her, a mischievous glint in his eyes.  She was crowded into his space and it made it a little difficult to take off his gear.  He got his vest off and immediately her hands were roaming the front of his flightsuit and digging into his pockets causing him to take a couple of quick breaths.  “Really?  Here?  In front of everyone?”

Rey paused and slowly withdrew her hands.  “You’re right.  I don’t want to share.  This way.”

She grabbed his hand and dragged him through the hangar, past other pilots and mechanics overlooking their crafts and droids going about their tasks.  He laughed as she pulled him with purpose around crates and equipment, but stopped laughing once she shoved him into a maintenance closet.  It was dark and a little damp and one of the pipes behind them was making a strange thudding every few seconds.  The door slid shut and clicked and her hands were on him again, questing eagerly into his flightsuit.

“Rey, Rey.”  He grabbed her hands and tried to temper her impatience.  “Don’t you want to take your time?  Savor it?”

“ _Poe_ ,”  she whined.  “I’ve been waiting for _weeks_.”

“Okay, okay.  I got you.”  Poe unzipped his flightsuit, nearly down to his belt, revealing a black tank top underneath.  He dug around in one of the inner pockets until he pulled out a small packet.

Rey’s hands were clapping together in barely contained glee as she waited for her prize.

“I hope it’s not too melted,”  Poe said, carefully unfolding the packaging revealing a few (only slightly goopy) brown squares.  He laughed at Rey, practically salivating in front of him, and held up the paper to her which she took gleefully.  Poe watched her delicate, pink tongue dart out and lick the sweet, gooey chocolate off the packaging.

Another swipe of her tongue and Poe was beginning to realize the playful innuendo had reached an end, at least on his end.  It was the end of the fun and jokes and turning into something that was making his clothing uncomfortably tight.  It was also far too warm in this closet, even with his flightsuit still zipped halfway down.  And really cramped.  Barely enough room to move around in.

“Hey, you were you serious about not sharing?”  He’d been staring at her—his mind making her eating the candy way more erotic than she ever would intend.  And now, the chocolate was gone.  Devoured fully into her tempting mouth.

Rey gave him a guilty look, and from the way her cheeks were puffed out, he could tell the chocolate was still dissolving on her tongue.  She stared back at him for a long second and he watched as her look morphed into something different.  It was a slow change, from the guilt over her momentary greed to the subtle desire darkening her eyes.

Her fingers dug into the front of his tank top and pulled him sharply to her.  Her lips crashed into his and when her tongue swept into his mouth, he could taste the chocolate.  It was sweet and creamy with just a hint of some native nut from the planet he’d procured it from.  It’d been expensive, getting the special treat that Rey had developed an obsession for, but as he wrapped his arms around her and licked the gooey delicacy off her teeth, he knew it was worth every credit.

When her hands began exploring up under his shirt, Poe reluctantly broke up the kiss.  “Okay, _that_ I would really prefer not to do here.”

Rey leaned back and raised an eyebrow at him, seemingly disbelieving such a statement.  “Really?”

“Every kinky rumor you’ve heard about me is patently untrue.”  Now, she _really_ looked like she didn’t believe him.  “Maybe not _every_ rumor, but I want to take my time.  _Savor_ it.”

Poe grinned as he felt her shudder in his arms.

“And,”  he said, just to add a bit more more temptation to his offer.  “There’s another bar of chocolate in my bag in the X-Wing.”

Rey whipped around, her hair smacking him in the face as she did so.  She reached for the door and pulled hard on the handle, nearly falling back into him when it didn’t budge.  She tried again, and again.  Poe squeezed in front of her and when he tried, the door didn’t open for him either.  It seemed to have locked on the outside, trapping them in the closet.

Behind him, Rey had started snickering.  “Guess you won’t be dispelling any of those kinky rumors.  We’ll have to call for help and they’ll find us all disheveled with chocolate on our lips.”

Realization dawned on Poe.  “No, no no.”  He started banging on the door.  “Finn!  Snap!  Pava!  You better stay out of my stuff!  Hey!  That chocolate is _mine_!”


	5. Bodyswap (Role Swap)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt was bodyswap, but I'm a rebel (and really couldn't think of anything for that) so! Here's Rey and Poe with their roles reversed. It kind of retells TFA, but things change a bit when Poe finds Finn.

At age two, Rey’s whole world consists of her grandfather.  Then, one day, her father comes home, followed by her mother.  And for a little while, they’re happy—all of them together.  Sickness takes her mother too soon, before she can teach her daughter about life and love, but not before she teaches her to fly.  Rey wants to fly away, off into the abyss because this planet is suddenly too small for her.  But her father makes her wait, year after year.

“Just one more harvest.”

She sits out under the shadow of her mother’s Force tree and pretends she can hear voices, but they don’t find Rey.  She’s not the one they seek, not this time.  She still has hope, though, that one day she can make a difference the way those legends did.  The way her mother did.

Finally, the day comes that her father can’t keep her at home any longer.  She’s an adult and takes off for the Capital, the Academy, to be a great pilot like her mother and her heroes.  Rey’s not like her heroes—she lives in a time of peace where her days are filled with checking shipping manifests and escorting diplomats.  She longs for adventure and something daring.

One day, it finds her.

“General Organa,”  she says, mouth dry, eyes wide.

There’s a growing darkness, the General tells her.  They didn’t quite snuff it out and it’s been festering on the edges of civilization.  This leader of the old Rebellion and the new wants _her_ —the farm girl from an Outer Rim moon.  Rey jumps at the chance; it’s all she’s ever wanted.  Her father is concerned when she tells him, but he knows most of these old heroes and knows that it’s important.  He begs the Force to keep his child safe.

The Force is slow on the uptake.

“Take the map!”  she yells at her droid.  “I’ll find you!  I promise!”

It’s her last words before he finds her, catches her.

 

At age eight, Poe’s alone.  He digs up scraps of metal and trades them for barely enough food to fill his small stomach.  He’s made a hovel out of an old walker and collects around him relics from the past.  These little things are worthless to the outside world, but to him, they’re everything.  They’re hope that one day his stars will change—someone will come for him.

They never do.  His days are difficult and monotonous.  Out into the dunes at sunup because the best stuff has already been picked clean and he has to travel so far out to find something worth scavenging.  The speeder breaks an hour out and he loses an hour fixing it.  It’s still morning and he’s nearly out of water.

His haul is meager and his throat is parched when Poe finally makes it back to Niima Outpost.  Plutt gives him less food than what he was promised, but what can he do other than take it?  He goes back home, marks off another day, and waits for the stars to come out.

Poe thinks he misses the stars, though he can’t ever remember having been out in them.  His whole life has been this miserable desert, but there’s something about space that pulls at him.  He wants to visit the water planet, but it seems silly.  A planet filled with water?  Not just silly—impossible.

He bolts upright at a droid squealing for help.  High-pitched and clear, like nothing he’s ever heard before.  Poe picks up his staff and darts through the sand, yelling at the other scavengers to let this creature go.  They exchange more furious words as Poe’s knife cuts into the net.

“It’s not salvage!”  Poe snaps as the ropes give way.  “You want its owner to come after you?!”

The Teedo probably would have put up more of a fight, but the beast he’s riding is impatient and doesn’t seem to like how close Poe’s knife is to its haunches.  They lumber off into the sand and Poe shushes the droid as it starts to try and gloat over its release.

Poe has always had a fondness for machines, and this little droid is adorable and friendly, but also newer than anything on Jakku.  It has a master out there somewhere who’s probably looking for it.  And Poe doesn’t want to get caught with someone else’s property.

BB-8, the droid calls itself, is quite convincing.  Poe is unimpressed (while also quietly impressed).

 

It’s Ben Solo, the boy she knew as a child.  Son of her parents’ friends—like her, the progeny of heroes.  There’s a familiar air about him and she feels it as he probes into her mind.  Rey is defiant and fights against him to protect her secret, her mission.  But Rey doesn’t have the Force—lacks the means to defend against such an assault.  He takes what he wants and leaves her nearly broken on the table.

She’ll die here, she’s accepted that.  She’ll die with failure in her heart because ~~Ben~~ Kylo knows where the map is.  When she meets her mother in the Force, will she be disappointed?  Rey wasn’t the hero she’s supposed to be.

She thinks that maybe she has died as she gets up and leaves the table, follows the white blob of a stormtrooper out the door, until he asks her if she can fly a TIE fighter.

“What?”  she asks.  Stars in the heavens, her head hurts something awful.

“Can you fly a TIE fighter?”

Rey’s lips curl into a smirk as she studies this sudden traitor that’s rescued her.  He’s handsome and equal parts nervous and hopeful.  “I can fly anything.”

She remembers those fateful words as they crash into the Jakku sands.

How many concussions has she received today?  Has it only been a day?  She’s not sure she can remember which order the numbers go in.  Rey remembers the man who saved her though, and frets that she can’t find him.  She wanders the desert for what feels like years.  So many times she wants to give up—lay down in the sand and wait for the end, but what if Finn or BB-8 are just over than next dune?

Rey keeps walking.

 

“All black and no hat is not a very good idea for the desert,”  Poe says as he looks at the man splayed out on the sand.  He kneels down and offers the man his canteen.  There’s not much left, but this one looks like he needs it much more than Poe.

“Wow, thanks,”  the man says and greedily drinks from the canteen.

Behind him, BB-8 whistles both alarmed and excited.

Poe’s demeanor changes from sympathetic to hostile  He raises his staff and points it at the man’s chest.  “Beebee-ate says that’s his master’s jacket.  That you _stole_ it, thief!”

He nearly drops the canteen, but snaps the lid back on just before the droid shocks him.  Poe winces, but doesn’t scold BB-8.  The desert has worse punishments for a thief.

“Where did you come from?”  Poe demands, with another jab of his staff.

“Hey!  Hey!  Rey?  Rey Dameron’s your master?”  The man deflates visibly and Poe dreads what’s coming.  It’s almost as if he can see the words start to float through the air before he even says it.  “I’m sorry, she didn’t make it.  We crashed in the desert and I couldn’t find her.”

BB-8 lets out a low whistle and starts rolling away, next to the man’s footprints in the sand.

“Beebee-ate, where are you going?”  Poe asks.

[To find Master Rey.]

Poe sighs and offers the man his hand to help him up.  “Are you with the Resistance, too?  What’s your name?”

The man pauses as if the questions are somehow confusing, and Poe wonders if he hit his head in the crash.  “Finn.  My name’s Finn.  And yes, _I am with the Resistance_.”

“I’ve never met someone from the Resistance,”  Poe says in awe, though there’s a tickling in the back of his mind that something seems off from the way that he said it.  Poe ignores that feeling, pointedly.

“Should we follow him?”  Finn asks.

“Beebee-ate has a very strong loyalty program.  He’ll keep looking for Rey until he finds her, or her body.  We can look for a little while if it makes him feel better, and then cut back up towards Niima Outpost.  You can find a ride back to the Resistance there.”

“You care about the droid’s feelings?”  Finn asks, sounding rather incredulous that droids were even capable of emotions.

Poe looks a little embarrassed that in the span of a day he’s managed to form an attachment to this little round machine.  He doesn’t want to see him hurt, so he nods at Finn and follows the the trench BB-8 has made in the sand.

 

When Rey has a moment of cognizance, she thinks about how burned her pale skin must be by now.  She misses the soft, brown leather of her jacket and wonders why she forgot to pull it out of the seat before she wandered away from the TIE fighter.  Maybe she left it on the X-Wing?  She can’t quite remember.

“Beebee-ate,”  she moans into the sand as a flash of memory comes back to her.  The X-Wing, BB-8, the map.  Her head hurts, her limbs don’t move the way she wants, and her insides feel like they’re drying out.  She’s trying, but nothing is working.

She’s so far gone, her eyes start to play tricks on her.  There, rolling quickly through the sand, is that familiar ball of orange and white.  His dome is pushed forward, trying to pick up momentum as he rushes towards her, impeded by the shifting dunes.  Faintly on the wind she can hear his screeching whistles.  She wishes it was real.

Rey groans as the mirage rolls into her side and starts prodding her with its claw apparatus.  He keeps hitting her right in that cracked rib and the beeping is somehow in unison with the pounding in her head.

“Rey!”  another voice she sort of recognizes shrieks.

A bunch of hands roll her over and shove a plastic nozzle into her mouth.  It’s wet and sweet, whatever this ambrosia is that they’re giving her.  Best damn drink of her life.  Too much—she nearly coughs it up and they pull it away eliciting another moan.

“We gotta get her back to the Resistance,”  Finn says.  Oh, that’s a good idea.  BB-8 and the stranger they’ve got with them also agree.

Someone’s picked her up.  She tries to insist that she can walk, but her mouth won’t make the words and her head lolls against his shoulder.  He’s strong, this desert urchin that Finn’s found.  Smells like he’s been living out in the desert his whole life though.  Rey thinks she probably can’t say anything about it because she can’t even remember the last time she’s seen a refresher.  He mumbles something—probably tells her to stop moving—but the words are just buzzing in her head and she doesn’t wake back up until they’re running from explosions.

 “We need a pilot!”  Finn yells as they’re running away from what looks like a town.  A town now on fire.

“We’ve got one!”  the other man responds.  He’s loud in her ear as Rey is now slung over his shoulder.

“She’s not really—”  Rey looks up at Finn racing behind them and can see the frightened look of concern on his face.

“I can do it,”  she groans and struggles to get out of the man’s grasp.  She’s not sure they hear her because he adjusts his grip and they keep running.

“What about that one?”  Finn calls, pointing to a medium freighter under a tarp.

“That one’s garbage!”  the other man yells back.

Whatever he has to say after is cut off by another explosion.  They’re thrown back and Rey finally escapes his grasp.  Head still pounding, world still spinning, she rolls up onto her knees and takes Finn’s hand when he pulls her to her feet.

“The garbage will do.  Come on!”  the man says and takes her other hand and they’re practically dragging her with them.

“Beebee-ate… Beebee-ate, let’s go,”  Rey mumbles, but the droid is already ahead of them as the tarp blows free of—holy shit.

Finn takes off to the gunner position while the other man races to the cockpit.  The ramp comes up and Rey is left wobbling in the corridor.  “I’m—I’m the pilot,”  she says to no one.

BB-8 bumps into the back of her legs as the ship leaves the ground, pushing her towards the cockpit.  She falls into the seat just as she sees the man reaching for a control just out of his reach.  She stares at the button for a long while and then pokes it with one digit.

He grins at her with a smile that doesn’t quite match the rest of him.  “Thanks.  Put your harness on.  Don’t need another head injury.”

“I’m the pilot,”  she says again.

“No offense, Rey Dameron, but right now, I’m the better pilot.”

She gets the belt buckled just in time as the ship rolls sending BB-8 bouncing around behind them.  Rey’s stomach lurches, a feeling she’s never had while flying before and chooses to blame more on the head injuries.  They’re a blur of movement and there are TIE fighters in pursuit.  They duck into a downed Imperial Star Destroyer—it’s like every flying dream she’s ever had—and one by one they pick off their pursuers.

This desert urchin isn’t bad, she thinks.  But she is definitely the better pilot.

“Who are you?”  she asks.

“Poe,”  he says, glancing over at her with another smile.

They burst into the sky and with quick fingers, Poe puts them safely into the confines of hyperspace.  He bursts out of his seat and goes to slap her on the shoulder, but thankfully thinks better of it, then rushes down to meet Finn.  Rey hears them laughing and cheering as well as excited beeping from BB-8.

Her fingers fumble with the stupid harness and finally she stands up.  The room is spinning still, but she manages with her arm braced on the wall to walk down to them.  Rey lets them have their moment of celebration.  They’ve escaped—for now.

“Do you know what this ship is?”  she asks them once they’ve finished hugging.

Poe looks at her and shrugs.  “I’m surprised it even flew.  It’s been collecting dust for years.”

“Finn?”  But he just shakes his head.  “ _This_ is the _Millennium Falcon_.”

“ _This_ is the ship that made the Kessel Run in _fourteen_ parsecs?”

Rey looks at Poe like he’s grown a second head.  “ _Twelve_.”

They all look at each other for a moment—three strangers from completely different walks of life and corners of the galaxy somehow found each other.  Rey thinks that the Force is finally on her side.  Finding this legendary ship from the old Rebellion proves it.

“What system is your base in?”  Poe asks.  “I can drop you guys off.”

“We’re not going there,”  Rey says decisively.

“Rey, have you seen yourself?  You need a week in a tank.”

Rey just shakes her head at Finn’s words.  “Don’t you see?  This is fate.  This ship.  Beebee-ate’s got the map—all we have to do is follow it.”

Poe shakes his head.  “I have to go back to Jakku.”

“Why does everyone want to go back to Jakku?”  Finn says in disbelief, throwing his hands into the air.

“Don’t you understand?”  Rey says, taking slow steps towards Poe.  “The Force pushed us together.  It wants us to see this through.  This mission, this fight, it’s the only thing that matters.”

Poe pauses as he looks at her with wide eyes, contemplating her words.  “The Force?”  he asks quietly, confused, but then almost in an odd sort of realization.

“Where does this map lead anyway?”  Finn asks.

Rey grins.  She’s hooked them both, now it’s time for the sinker.  “Straight to Leia Skywalker.”


	6. Accidentally Married

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did say these were supposed to be Damerey didn't I...

“This hat is special or something?”  Rey asked Poe as they sat in the cockpit of the _Falcon_ , about to exit hyperspace.

Poe shrugged.  “I just remember the General saying _explicitly_ , ‘do not let anyone take this off Rey’s head.’  She said it a dozen times, so I’m guessing it’s really important.”

“I guess all cultures have their own unique traditions.  I just wish this one had more attractive hats.”  She pulled the pointed hat over her head, tucking her hair behind her ears.  It was a muddy green and orange color and it appeared to serve no other function except to sit on her head.  It wasn’t warm, or very ornamental.  Just an ugly cap.

“So we get in, meet these delegates, and get them to support the Resistance.  A little Force persuasion if we have to.”

“If they realize I’ve tricked them, they’re likely to rescind any help, you know.”

“So we get them turn over the bombs and fighters _before_ they figure it out,”  he told her with a wink.  “Your hat is very cute, by the way.”

“Liar.”

The people of this backwater moon were pleasant enough—humanoid, but in many different skin colors ranging from pink and yellow to purple and black and everything in between.  Many were wearing hats like Rey, though hers seemed to be rather plain in comparison.  There were large and small ones, ones with baubles and in as many different colors as there were stars in the sky.

“Do you think the hats mean different things?”  Rey asked Poe quietly as they were led through a large palace-like building.  “What do you think mine means?  It’s rather… boring.”

“Maybe that you’re humble?”

“Or poor.”

“Or you’re already too pretty.  You’d outshine any fancy hat.  What I want to know,”  Poe said, smoothly continuing their quiet conversation as if he hadn’t just paid her a compliment,  “is why I don’t have a hat.  At first I thought it was a gender thing, but lots of the men here have them.”

“Aw, do you want a hat, Poe?”

“Nope, just bombs and fighters.”

While Poe might have just been after the resources this society had offered to General Organa and the Resistance, it seemed they were a rather closed-off culture and relished at having some fresh faces to show around.  Poe and Rey were treated to traditional dances and music and costumes as well as a full state dinner of interesting foods.  Rey was happy to try anything they put in front of her and ate more than her fill.  Poe was a bit more reserved and didn’t want anything that was still wiggling.

“I just prefer my food fully cooked,”  he said after she teased him about his picky eating.

Their hosts were amiable enough—asking questions about the rest of the galaxy.  They seemed to be hitting all the right social cues as well.  So far, the people of this moon were unperturbed by Poe’s lack of enthusiasm for their cuisine and they all seemed rather disturbed by the news about the First Order.  A few made comments about how _darling_ Rey’s hat was, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask potentially invasive questions about what the hats actually meant.  _Bombs and fighters,_ she kept telling herself.

The dessert course was one they soon wouldn’t forget with jiggling puddings that had tentacles and giant, bulbous eyeballs that _stared_ back at the eater.  Rey poked at it with curiosity, but Poe looked as green as some of their hosts and spent most of that course with his head bent trying not to look at his food.

“Just let me know when it’s time to talk business,”  he groaned and excused himself to go find a refresher.

Rey frowned, watching her companion walk away, but figured at least one of them should enjoy the festivities and build bridges with these people.  The main event of the long and full evening came when a group of older people brought out torches.  They all had on flamboyant face paint and they were draped in beaded jewelery.  They also all seemed to be wearing what looked like burned fabric on their heads.

“ _Oh_ ,”  Rey said as they walked around the room and began lighting hats on fire.

This had to be some sort of ritual.  They were accepting her into their tribe—or something.  How exciting, and she couldn’t believe Poe was missing it.  She just had to sit perfectly still and not panic.  She could do that.  Likely there was a special treatment on the hat that would burn it away but leave her perfectly safe.

She hoped.

There was laughing and chanting as the fires around the room burned.  Rey’s forehead beaded with sweat at the heat on her head.  The fires seemed to burn rather slowly and younger people were glancing at each other and blushing.  Whether from the warmth, or something else she was missing, Rey wasn’t sure.

“Rey!  I got you, Rey!”

“Poe!”  Rey shrieked and tried to clap her hands against the hat, but she was so focused on not moving and letting the ritual happen, he surprised her.  He yanked it off her head and started stamping out the fire before she could tell him to stop.

Around the room, people gasped.  Some giggled.  At the end of a long moment of Rey and Poe staring at each other open-mouthed and breathing hard, cheering erupted.

_“What did you do?_ ”  she mouthed at him, then pointed emphatically at her head where the hat was supposed to _stay_.

“You were on _fire_ ,”  he shot back.

Rey turned around and gesticulated wildly at all of the other hats on fire in the room.  Though now, most had burned down to the brim and (as expected) left their owners completely unsinged.  Despite their confusion, several of the older folks with the face paint had discarded their torches and brought intricately decorated shimmersilk fabrics over to them and began wrapping them around Poe and Rey, binding them together.

“Oh, this is…”  Rey didn’t know what this is.  She grunted as they pushed her into Poe and literally tied them up in these admittedly very pretty fabrics.  “Don’t say anything, Poe.  They look pleased.  Just go with it.”

“What if—ow!” 

With a fierce look to just _stop talking_ and the stomp on his toes, Poe finally got the hint to just _deal_.

A man with dark green skin in an extravagant outfit of silver and gold walked slowly towards them, swinging an ornate object that was leaking some interesting smelling smoke.  He walked in a circle around Poe and Rey chanting words in a language neither one of them understood.

It was an intense fifteen minutes or so of being close enough to Poe she could smell him.  If it hadn’t been such a weird and awkward situation (and if he hadn’t broken the only rule they were given on this mission), it might have been nice.  Looking at Poe, he still appeared mildly concerned, but when she caught his eye, he looked apologetic and glanced away.

At the end of the ordeal, the cloth was carefully unwrapped from around them and a different one was draped over their shoulders.  When they tried to move apart, they were forcibly kept standing next to each other—their hosts smiling all the while.  Not malicious, but with enjoyment and pride.  So they kept going with it.

They were led out of the banquet hall, through the building, to another room that appeared to be their quarters for the night.  Poe tried to interject, saying they needed to speak to their leader about the supplies for the Resistance, that they had a mission they needed to take care of.

The man leading them smiled and nodded and touched a hand to Poe’s chest.  “Tomorrow, we will speak of business.  Tonight, Mr. Dameron—oh, I’m sorry.  What’s your family name, Miss Rey?”

“Uh.”  Rey stared at the man blankly.  She knew he didn’t mean to be rude, but was she tired of that question.  “It’s just Rey of Jakku.”

Seemingly unfazed by her answer, the man turned back to Poe.  “Mr. Of-Jakku, tonight you begin your journey as a dutiful husband.  May your night together be as frenzied as your proposal.”

“Wow,”  Poe said after the man had left and the shock had worn off.  “Your face is an amazing shade of red.”

It was embarrassment at first, then anger.  That would have been very important information to have _before_.  And then embarrassment again because while Poe had the good sense to at least look ashamed that he had caused this, he also a cheeky smirk on his lips.  It’s not that she didn’t find his big dumb face attractive or their conversations interesting, but marriage was a rather large step up from simply enjoying someone’s company.

“Relax,”  he said, resting a hand on her shoulder.  “It’s just this planet’s ritual.  It doesn’t mean anything in the rest of the galaxy.”

“That really doesn’t make me feel better.  _They_ will see us as married.  And Leia _knew_ —we’ll have to tell her.”

“Leia will probably have a good laugh about it when we tell her.  Part of me thinks she knew this would happen.”

That did not do much to assuage how anxious this situation had made her.  “Maybe they do annulments.”

“Would being married to me really be so bad?”  Poe laughed.  “I’m a decent enough guy.  Great pilot.  Charismatic leader.  Crack shot.  I can cook, too—and not food that’ll stare back at you.”

“Humble, too.”

Sometime while they were standing there quipping at each other, his hand had moved from her shoulder and rested on her collarbone, fingertips dancing dangerously close to her neck.

“I’m just saying, who knows if one of those other people wasn’t looking to pull that hat off your head first.  You could have been stuck with some frumpy green dude.”

Why was he getting closer?  And licking his lips?  And he’d look at her in the eyes and then glance down and then back up and it made her stomach flip.

“What if I like green?”  she said quietly.

“I could be convinced to invest in body paint.”  He was so close now she could feel his breath on her lips when he spoke.  And his eyes—they were the darkest brown Rey had ever seen.  She swallowed, trying to get her stomach to stop doing that flipping thing.

“I feel like you’re taking advantage of this situation.”

“I could leave.”

“No.”  It came out abrupt, alarmed.  She didn’t want him to go.  Not before finishing whatever this very close conversation was.  “I was just comm—”

He kissed her, finally.  After all that talking that seemed like it would never stop.  Softly at first, as if testing if this was something they both wanted.  Marriage was still something absurd, but a kiss… a kiss was fine.

He pulled back and Rey felt a slight twinge of regret from him, like perhaps he realized she was right and he had used this situation to do something that maybe they weren’t ready for.  Oh, no, he wasn’t getting away that easy.  Rey dug her fingers into the front of his jacket and pulled him back to her; inexperienced in the art of kissing and other romantic things, but she let her instincts take over.  She felt him smile against her lips as she kissed him, full and firm.

“I still want an annulment,”  she told him, her arms slipping inside of his jacket and curling around his waist.

“I don’t want to offend them,”  he said, his hands pushing into her hair as he kissed her again.  “I want my bombs.”

“You may literally be the worst, Poe Dameron.”

“That’s Poe Of-Jakku.”


	7. Blind Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU (slight Olympic AU????)

Rey checked her hair in her reflection one last time before entering the busy bar.  Not that it really mattered what she looked like, she knew this blind date was likely to be a disaster considering who had set her up.  She was too nice, didn’t want to upset anyone or hurt delicate feelings, so she had said yes.  Rey told herself if it turned out poorly, she’d stay for an hour if she could stand it, and then politely use the excuse that she had to get up early in the morning.  Which was true, but she’d still probably be up until midnight watching Netflix.

At the bar, she ordered a soda and enjoyed the free overly salty pretzels.  She looked at her phone, ate a pretzel, sipped her drink, looked at her phone again.  So much for this date being punctual.

“Hey, is anyone sitting here?”  a voice asked her.  He sounded a bit timid, but when she turned to look at him, she highly doubted he lacked in confidence at all.

His dark hair, short, but not enough to hide the curl it had, was tousled in casual nonchalance.  He had that hipster beard that was popular with many young men these days.  Rey always preferred clean-shaven, but on him, it fit the pleasant contours of his face.  There was a glint in his eye—something brash and sure of himself.  And he was wearing the dark leather jacket with the funny patch she had been told to look for.

“Not yet,”  she said with a smile.  If this was who she was waiting for, his handsome face was enough to have her hang around for a little while—should he not say anything she took objection to.

He sat back onto the barstool and tapped the surface to get the barkeeper’s attention.  “Can I get a Shiner, and—you good, with your half a soda?  Want anything else?”

Rey twirled the straw in her drink and shook her head.  “I’m good.  One’s my limit, anyway, or my coach will have me run laps around the gym.”

“Coach, huh?  What do you play?”  he asked as he leaned back with his elbows against the bar as he took a drink of his beer.

“Épée.”

“Fencing?  Like collegiate level or…?  Do they have pro-fencing?  Is that a job?”  His tone was light and interested, not disbelieving or mocking.

She chuckled lightly and nodded.  “There is a tournament circuit, but I have my eyes somewhere a bit higher.”

It took a second for it to dawn on him and he had a surprised and impressed expression once it hit him.  Rey shook her head slightly, willing him to not say it.  There was something superstitious about saying the O-word out loud—telling strangers she met out in the wild and not in the confines of sport that she had dreams of gold.

“What about you?”  she asked, changing the subject away from herself.

“I’m in a band.”  He nodded, sounding like being in a band was not nearly as impressive as being an aspiring Olympian.  “Once, we played for almost a hundred people.  Was kind of a big deal.”

She laughed again at his self-deprecating sarcasm.

“Excuse me,”  a man interjected into their conversation, rather rudely Rey thought.  “Are you Rey?”

“Ah, yes, that’s me?”  Looking over the new person, he was tall with red hair, pale and clean-shaven.  Rather serious looking, quite unlike the man she had been talking to.  And wearing a very similar jacket to the other man, as well.

“I’m Armitage Hux,”  he said, holding out his hand.  “I believe your cousin set us up on a date.”

“Oh.”  Rey frowned.  She glanced from his hand and over to the dark-haired stranger.  “I thought—oops.”

The man lifted his bottle in a small salute and stood up off the stool.  “Well, it was nice chatting with you.  Have a good evening with Mr. Hugs here.”

Armitage huffed as the other man walked away and took over his spot on the barstool.  “Hu _x_ ,”  he said with annoyance after the man had left.  He ordered a drink from the bar and turned towards Rey, looking just as sour about being here as she suddenly felt.

“So… how do you know Ben?”  she asked, figuring she’d make small talk for a few minutes and then leave.  He had been rather late after all.

“We work together,”  he responded shortly.  “He’s an insufferable kiss-ass and I keep getting roped into his schemes.”

“O-kay…  That does sound like Ben, to be honest.”  Rey sipped her soda and gave this Armitage the benefit of a conversation.  Which he dominated.  He rambled about his job for a few minutes then snapped at the bartender because his drink was a stout, or wasn’t a stout, or something else.  Rey had tuned him out.  She took out her phone and found her cousin’s name and texted him: **[I hate you.]**  

Rey picked up her purse and stood up from her seat.  “You can tell Ben you fulfilled your part of the deal.  Have an evening, Mr. Hugs—I mean, Hux.”

She moved quickly through the crowded bar, desperately hoping he didn’t try and follow her, though she seriously doubted it.  He was obviously just as irritated to have been set on this date as she was.  At least there had been a small highlight.

“That good of a date, huh?”

Rey turned to see the handsome man from earlier leaning up against the side of the building, mostly empty bottle dangling in his fingers.  “It was better when I thought you were my blind date.”

“We could still make that happen, if you want.  I know a great place to get cheese fries, but that’s probably something you’ll have to run laps for.”

“Only if someone tattles,”  she said with a grin.  “What’s your name?”

He pushed off the wall and tossed the bottle into the trash bin and walked over to her.  He stuck out his hand and smiled.  “Poe.  Poe Dameron.”

“I’m Rey,”  she said, taking his hand.  “And I am very excited for cheese fries.”

“Me too.”


	8. Cooking Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is loosely related to [Chapter 2: Character Can't Sleep.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13618674/chapters/31273683)

The base was large—larger than their Resistance.  Cavernous hangars dwarfed the few supplies they’d piled in.  It was still early, and Poe and Leia and the rest of command tried to assure the others that help was one the way.  They’d received some—a couple of fighters, munitions, food, and personal items.  The galaxy was full of these old, abandoned rebel bases and many of them still had some things left.

Rey enjoyed exploring it.  Though she missed almost nothing of Jakku, when the sands would shift and expose a forgotten ship, there was a rush in discovering its secrets.  It was the same sort of feeling now as she pushed aside grates and peered into escape tunnels.  Closets that had small droid doors that led deep into the base’s innards—to a maintenance bay or a trash compactor.  She wanted to reveal all its secrets.

She already found a stash of blaster rifles and charge packs, which got her several pats on the back from excited rebels.  After they had walked away to inventory the loot she found, Poe gave her a wink which made her insides tingle and her cheeks darken.

They’d grown closer in their days on the run, searching for allies and a place to set up shop.  Often, they’d cross paths late at night or early in the morning, when sleep evaded them.  She found herself wondering what sleeping next to him would feel like.  He’d fallen asleep on her shoulder more than once as they sat out under the stars, but that was as far as anything went.  She imagined it’d be a nice feeling to be held while she slept—to feel warm and protected.

Rey knew her cheeks must be bright red as she dropped down out of the vent she crawled into.  She wiped the sweat off her brow and shook her head, trying to shake away those silly thoughts.

“What did you find?”  Poe asked from the mess hall as she tried to walk past.

She felt that he was in there at this late hour, but after where her mind had been wandering, wasn’t sure if she wanted to face him at the moment.  It seems he had felt her presence as well, or at least hear her feet pacing outside the door.

“Are you hungry?”  he asked when she didn’t respond to his first question.

“What are you doing eating so late?”  she asked in return.

“We made a deal with some of the colonists on the southern continent, and they gave us—”  He grinned as he held up two brown ovals.  “—fresh eggs.”

“So,”  she started as she walked into the room and found a seat near where he was cooking.  “You used your position as Leia’s right hand to get first dibs on the food?”

“Well, you’re more her right hand, but yes.”

“Couldn’t sleep?”  Rey didn’t really believe that he’d take advantage and sneak food.  He was likely finding something to occupy his time so he didn’t have to think of the things actually bothering him.  Fresh food just happened to be his vice this night.

“Have you ever had eggs?”  he asked, navigating the subject back to food.

“Yes.  Didn’t enjoy them very much, though.”

“I’m going to make you fall in love,”  he said with a wink.  “With eggs.”

Rey laughed and rested her elbows on the table, relaxing into the chair.  It was unnerving the way he got her to relax so easily around him—in fact, he seemed to have that effect on most people.  The Resistance was in general full of kind, mostly likable people, especially Finn and Leia who had become as close as family.  Poe effortlessly disarmed that always on feeling of alertness she felt she had to have.  It was a warm feeling, if also a bit disconcerting.

“My father makes this all the time.  It tastes the best with fresh ingredients.”

“Canned beans?”  Rey asked, pointing out the obvious flaw in his demonstration of “freshness.”

“Okay, fresh beans are a pain in the ass and I will not hear you slander canned beans.”

Rey laughed and held up her hands.  “Yes, yes, you’re the chef.  Go on, then.”

He did have fresh onions and tomatoes, which smelled absolutely heavenly as he chopped and cooked.  The pan sizzled and he told her to sit back down when she tried to get up and sneak a peek.  It seemed whoever they had traded with had also thrown in a variety of spices because there were amazing smells Rey had never even imagined existed.  Even though she hadn’t really been hungry, her mouth was watering and her stomach was having a tantrum over wanting to eat what he was cooking _now_.

What he set down in front of her was a delightful display of delicious smelling colors.  A flat circle of what could be bread covered in beans, bright red tomatoes, chopped green flakes, and of course the bulb of orange yolk surrounded by white.

“What’s it called?”  she asked as she picked up her fork.

“Huevos rancheros.  Ranch eggs, basically.  Here.”  He took her fork and cut out a piece of the egg, then scooped up some of the tomatoes and beans with it.  Rey was a little cautious at first, when he held the fork up for her, but gave in and opened her mouth and let him put the food on her tongue.

“ _Wow_ ,”  was all she managed to get out before she snatched the fork from him and started scooping up the next bite to shove in her mouth.  In between mouthfuls she said,  “I can see why your father makes this all the time.  It’s delicious!”

Poe grinned and nodded as he found his own fork and started in on his plate.  “Better than rations, huh?”

“After this, I think I’d rather starve than eat more dehydrated garbage.”

“Oops,”  Poe said with a smile.  He did not at all look like he regretted such an action.

“Do you get to see him at all?  Your father?”  Rey asked.

“Not as often as he’d like.  I saw him a couple months ago.  He’s got this ranch and an orchard of koyo trees.  These big fruits—sweet as candy and so juicy you can drink ‘em.”

“Sounds wonderful,”  she said, almost wistfully.  Then added, as if not to make it about her and her sad lack of family or home,  “I’d love to try one of these koyo fruits.”

“Next time we’re in that part of the galaxy, I’ll take you to meet my dad.  He’d get a real kick out of seeing someone eat koyo for the first time.”

It was a nice sentiment and Rey smiled as she went back to eating.  It sounded almost normal, going home and sharing things like regular people.  But they weren’t those types of people.  Not yet, anyway.

“Thanks for letting me share this with you,”  he told her as he cleaned up and put everything away.

“No, thank you.  That was amazing.”  Rey rocked slightly on her feet as it was certainly near morning already.  They’d already had breakfast, though sacrificed sleep for it.  “Would you like to meditate with me?”

Poe’s lips curled into a small smile, but there was so much more there.  Gratitude and… something else that made Rey feel like she needed to hide her face away before he saw how hot her cheeks were.  “Yes, I’d like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I miss Mexican food so much. u_u


	9. Character Has Amnesia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or "50 First Dates" AU.

Poe still remembers that moment with the sinking feeling—the image of her falling.  He can’t recall anymore the details that precipitated the battle or what the outcome was.  He just remembers standing there watching her body being thrown like a toy off the cliff into the ravine below.

They said the Force helped slow her fall and that’s how she lived.  It’s how they found her bloody and broken, but still breathing.

Rey was supposed to be the shining beacon to light their way into a new era.  The first of the new line of Jedi.  She would take the ancient texts and the lessons of Skywalker and they’d save the galaxy—together.  The galaxy had been saved, but it was Finn who took up the texts and the lightsaber when their hope lay dying.

Poe knows that Rey likes how that’s the ending of the story.  She tells him near every day.

 

“Okay, buddy, time to wake up Rey,”  Poe tells BB-8 and they begin their morning ritual.  Poe makes breakfast while BB-8 rolls into her room to deliver the news.  Some days, she takes it well, comes out curious and with a thousand questions.  There are days when she doesn’t understand and screams at him to tell her the truth, as if this is all some elaborate trick.  The days when she goes to the Force tree to seek her answers are the easiest.  Poe doesn’t know how it works, if there’s some sort of “Force download,” but the information passes quickly.  Those are the days she kisses him and they get to spend the hours that she remembers him in almost newly-wed bliss.

For Poe, there are days when he gets angry and frustrated as well, but he knows that it’s not her fault.  That despite their science and medical advancements, Rey’s brain injury is delicate and they can’t try to fix her damaged cells without taking the chance that it might kill her.  Perhaps he’s selfish that on the days when she asks about fixing what’s wrong and decides to try the procedure, he tells her they’ll contact the hospital on Coruscant in the morning.  Of course, by then, she’s forgotten again.

Rey makes him promise that once she reaches the decision to try the procedure ten times, he’ll make the call.  She programs the command into BB-8 and makes it so he can’t override it.

Today, they’re still at nine.

“Why Yavin?”  she asks as she comes out of the bedroom.

He looks up from setting the plates on the table and smiles.  Today’s going to be a day where she’s asking questions—good.  Yesterday was a bad day.  She’ll probably ask why her muscles are so sore or about the healing cuts on her feet.  He’ll have to tell her how she ran away into the jungle with no shoes.

“This is my home, and where the Force tree is.  Sometimes you meditate next to it and it helps.”

“Why are we living together?”

That question always stabs him right through the chest.  Her memory stops sometime after they’d left Crait.  She lost that year that they spent on the run, finding allies, rebuilding the Resistance… falling in love.  Poe’s odds are pretty good if he’s blunt, and with her inquisitive mood it’s more likely she won’t be callous and tear his heart out, again.  “Because when I asked you to marry me, you said yes.”

“Oh.”  She sits down at the table and takes in the offerings he’s put out.  Bread, fruit, boiled eggs—a sampling of what she usually likes.  Rey picks a few things and eats slowly.  “Was it a nice wedding?”

“Uhm.”  Poe chuckles as he settles down in his seat and makes his own plate.  “It was about five minutes before we thought we were going to get blown up.”

“So, like any day really.”

He grins at her humor.  “Pretty much.  Leia presided over it.  Finn and Rose were our witnesses.  I gave you my mother’s ring, and then we went out and kicked some First Order ass.”

Rey’s fingers find the chain around her neck and the ring dangling off it.  She stares at it as if she didn’t even realize she was wearing it.  She takes it off the chain and slides it on her finger, as if it’s the most natural thing, and his heart feels a little better.  “How’s Finn?”

“He’s good.  Beebee-ate can give you some info, if you want it, or we could call him later.”

She pauses eating as she rotates the ring around her finger.  There’s a long breath and Poe glances for where he set the box of tissues if she starts crying.

“I miss him,”  she says quietly.

“I know.  He was here a few months ago.  Beebee-ate has some holos and Finn recorded you some messages, if you want to see them.”

Her shoulders shrug slightly and she goes back to picking at her food.  “Has it really been five years?”  she asks as he’s cleaning up breakfast.

Poe nods.  Maybe it won’t be a good day.  Maybe it will be an average day where she’s just sad and spends all day reading news articles and looking at holos and cry about the life she thinks she’s missing.  And then she’ll forget all about it when she goes to sleep.

“It’s been five good years, Rey,”  he tells her.  “War’s over.  The Republic is back and better than it was before.  Finn and Rose and so many of our friends are alive and happy.”

“And you?”  she asks, tears starting to slip down her cheeks.  “Are you happy taking care of broken me?”

“Of course,”  he says with a smile, though he can feel the knot in his throat and the tears starting to form.  She does better when he doesn’t cry, so he holds it in.  He finds the box of tissue and hands it to her.  “Come on.  Let me show you what’s outside.”

She follows him slowly, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose.  He leaves the door open so the breeze can blow through the house as they walk out onto the porch.  In the distance, there’s another house, a bit bigger than this one.  Further still is an old hangar and a couple other outbuildings.  Sitting out on a stretch of permacreet in front of the hangar is an X-Wing—black and orange just like his old one.  Surrounding them are fields—some with lines of fruit-bearing trees, others with lines of flowering crops.  In the middle of a large, open space between the two houses is a towering, slightly glowing tree.

“You gave up flying to be a farmer?”  She sounds a bit guilty as she asks it.

“Nah.  I still fly, but like I said, the war’s over.  And I’ve always been a farmer and a pilot.”  He points over at the other house where someone has come out onto their porch and is waving at them.  “There’s my dad.  He’ll come over for dinner, if you’re up to it.  It’s fine if you’re not.  How you feeling?”

Rey takes a few breaths, but she looks better.  She’s not sobbing or screaming, so that’s always a good sign.  She squares her shoulders and nods.  “I will be okay.”

“Good.”  He smiles at her.  It’s a good answer, one he was hoping for.  “I need to go out and check on some of the equipment and a couple of trees we’re trying to get healthy.  Will you be okay for a couple hours?  Beebee-ate will be here and answer any questions you have.”

“You said the tree helps?”

“Yeah, it’s connected to the Force and—”

“Yes, I can feel it.  It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah,”  he agrees, but he isn’t looking at the tree.  He leans towards her slightly to press a kiss to her cheek, but she pulls away, nervous and embarrassed.  Some days she lets him, today isn’t one of those.  He gives her a smile and nods and tells her he’ll see her soon.

 

Poe comes home a bit later than expected, sweaty and sore.  The house is empty, but that’s a good thing.  If BB-8 isn’t here then they’re likely together, so he tries not to worry.  He walks over to the computer console and keys in BB-8’s comm frequency.

“How’s it going buddy?  What are you two up to?”  Poe laughs at the response and his heart swells to hear that they’ve taken the X-Wing out and are out in the stars weaving between asteroids.  “Tell her I’m home, will you?”

He takes a shower, finds some fresh clothes, and makes himself some lunch.  He’s updating price per bushel in a spreadsheet when BB-8 rolls through the door beeping happily.  Rey’s behind him, helmet swinging from her fingers.

“Did you have a good flight?”  Poe asks with a grin.  He can tell by her swagger that the X-Wing thrilled her in the way only the first time you fly in one can, even though it’s not her first time.  Part of him is a bit jealous that she gets to experience that more than once.

Rey drops the helmet to the floor and walks up to him; wraps her arms around him as he sits in front of the console.  She kisses the top of his head, his ear, then buries her face in his neck and sighs deeply.

“Did you meditate, too?”  He doesn’t need to ask.  He knows from how she’s acting that she’s absorbed the last five years and remembers him—remembers that she loves him.

“Why don’t you just tell me to do that every morning?”

“Some days you’re not very receptive.  Don’t like being told what to do.  It’s better to let you decide on your own.  It’s a delicate dance.”

She rotates his chair away from the computer screen and settles down in his lap, arms draping over his shoulders and she snuggles in close to him.  “I’m so sorry, Poe.”

“For what?  Everyday there’s the chance you’ll fall in love with me again, and most days, you do,”  he says, and she sniffs a bit and squeezes even closer to him.  Poe wraps his arms around her and kisses her forehead.

“Finn’s a Jedi.  I like that.”

Poe smiles.  “I know.”

Rey sits up slightly to curl her fingers around the back of his head and presses her lips to his.  Her tongue grazes his lips and he opens up for her, his hands squeezing around her middle as she kisses him deeply.  He moans softly in the back of his throat, because it’s been awhile since she’s had a really good day where they’ve ended up sharing a bed.  He feels her smiling against his lips and she shifts slightly in his lap that makes him break off the kiss with a quick breath.

“Beebee-ate, go tell my dad he’s going to have to make other dinner plans.”

“No, Bee, stay for a minute.”  She pulls back and brushes her fingers through his hair.  She’s going to tell him something he doesn’t want to hear, he can feel it.  “I want to go to Coruscant and do the procedure to try and fix my memory.”

“Rey—”

BB-8 beeps, cutting him off.  It’s the tenth time she’s made this decision.

“—you could lose all brain function.  You could _die_.”

“And pretty soon, I’m going to wake up and be old and reliving the same day, never moving forward.  You deserve more than just taking care of me, Poe.”

“You are _not_ a burden,”  he tells her fiercely.  She doesn’t need to say it.  He knows that’s what she’s thinking because they’ve had this discussion a thousand times before.

She kisses him again because now he’s the one with tears on his cheeks.  “I want the life we both dreamed of when you asked me to marry you.  The one in the stars, with our friends.”

“We can—we can talk about this tomorrow,”  he says with a stuttering breath, even though he knows it’s too late.  BB-8’s already connected to the console and sending messages out to the hospital on Coruscant and Finn.  Tomorrow, she won’t remember this decision she’s made, but everything is already set in motion and he can’t change it.

She doesn’t stop caressing him—running her fingers through his hair, rubbing the back of his neck, kissing him.  “Take me out to the tree tomorrow, Poe.  And everyday until this happens.  No matter how much I fight you, make me remember so we can have everyday.”

Poe holds her close, and nods.  She’s had days like this before, where she’s in charge and she makes all of the choices about her care.  He’ll listen to her, and respect her wishes as much as he can, but they’re always different the next day.  This time is different, and they both can feel it.  So he holds her, kisses her, tries not to think about how he could lose her.

“I love you, Poe.  This is going to work.”

“I know,”  he says.  Maybe if they believe it hard enough, it will happen.  Maybe she has enough hope for the both of them.  “I know.”


	10. Character Has Been Gone a Year

Rey ran.

Defeat after defeat levied against the Resistance broke spirits, broke backs.  She had watched as Kylo Ren had murdered his father, and later, his mother.  She regretted ever feeling hope for such a monster.  The young leadership took the Resistance as far as they could, but grit and spit could only take them so far against such evil.  So she ran.

At least, that’s what they all had thought.

She had gone, as far as she could go, to find help and resources.  She went searching for ancient knowledge, temples, and crystals.  Kyber, Adegan, dragon pearls… any one of those would do.

What she hadn’t planned on was being pulled out of hyperspace and crashing onto a planet that, on first notice, appeared to exist beyond the influence of the Force.  The X-Wing she’d been in had taken enough of a beating that it wouldn’t be able to lift off again without significant repairs.  Though, it seemed other crafts had met the same fate the more she explored—finding crashed freighters, fighters, and other defunct machinery.

Rey had expected it would take her a few weeks to get the necessary repairs done.  Hopefully, there would still be a Resistance left when she got back.

The lack of the Force—the familiar ebb and flow—had a deeper impact on her than she would have believed.  At first, it was a loss of equilibrium that she eventually got used to.  The strange, flavorless plants she found that were edible, she also got used to.  The odd orbit of the planet that caused the sunrise and sunset to happen at irregular intervals she never got used to.  She had to shut the power down on the ship to conserve energy while she scavenged for parts and lost track of time.

It had been perhaps a few months—far longer than she had intended to be here.  Her friends may have already called off the search and even thought her dead.  Oh, she couldn’t wait to see the looks on all their dumb faces.  She should probably feel bad about getting a laugh out of it, but she’d been on this planet _alone_ , without even the Force to keep her company.

With a grin on her face and the trinkets she’d found in the hold under her seat, Rey turned the (hopefully) fixed X-Wing back on.

Her grin vanished.

A year.  She had been gone a year.

 

At the fifth rendezvous point she checked, they found her.

The Force felt different now than before she had crashed.  It felt just as desperate and lonely as she had felt on that planet.  Something had changed while she had been missing, something fundamental.  The scales had tipped too far to one side, sunk too deep into the pit.  Whether it was the lethargy of the flow of the Force, or its last gasp telling her to bide her time, Rey wasn’t sure.  She listened anyway, as there wasn’t much else she thought she could do alone and with only one fighter.

The stormtrooper guard didn’t bring her before their volatile Emperor or his crowing General.  Didn’t take her to be interrogated or tortured.  They brought her to someone she did not think in a thousand years would ever be _here_ , on a Star Destroyer, wearing their uniform.

His hair slicked back and neat, his face closely shaved, his eyes dead.

“Poe?  What has he done to you?”

Rey recognized it immediately.  She could almost taste the dark side taint drenching his soul.

“I was tired of seeing everyone I loved die.”  He spoke slow, deliberate, as if they weren’t really his words.  It was his voice, soft and even and familiar, that sent a chill through her bones as it clashed with the substance of what he was saying.  “This way, the fighting stops.  The galaxy lives in peace.”

“Subjugation isn’t peace!”  she spat back at him.  “ _You_ told me that!”

“Take her to a cell,”  he told the stormtroopers.  “See that she’s fed and has fresh clothes.  Emperor Kylo wants her taken care of so she can see the benevolence of our peaceful Empire.”

 

The place where they took her was a small room with a shelf she could sit or lay on, both uncomfortably.  A tray of untouched food sat on the floor.  Despite her hunger, she didn’t want their food, or anything else they wanted to give her.  Fresh clothes lay unfolded on the shelf—black robes with a blood red sash.  As if they expected her to be as dark and obedient as Dameron.

The rage welled up inside her, clawed at her throat and tried to escape in a scream.  Instead, she balled up her fist and punched the wall.  Then swore as she cradled her now bloody knuckles.

“It’s no good breaking your hand now,”  she scolded herself in a whisper.

“Yes, please don’t hurt yourself, Rey.”  Poe’s voice again, drifting through the air with all that slow calm.

She sucked in air through her teeth and wiped the tears off her cheeks with her good hand before she turned around to face him.  “Why does it matter?  I won’t join him.  He’ll have to kill me.  I won’t stop fighting.”  Even now she was thinking how she could get past Poe.  There were several guards in this corridor alone, even more in this block.  Evading all of them would be quite difficult.

“Bring me a medkit,”  Poe said as he snapped his fingers just outside the door to get one of those guards’ attention.  “I don’t want you to suffer, Rey.”

There was something in the way he had said it.  A crack in which softness and _feeling_ escaped.  She felt it, only just, that he was afraid and she hoped it was because somewhere in there, he knew this was _wrong_.

She felt it again after he pulled the medicated gauze out of the medkit and gently swiped it over her knuckles.  Carefully rubbing away the blood and massaging the medicine into her skin to speed healing.  Rey was not idle as he did this, though.  Quietly, she looked for that crack so she could peak further in.  She needed to find the real Poe she knew was hiding in there.  The one with the easy smile who believed in the light.  If she could find him, help him shed the dark—

“Ah—!”  she gasped and winced as Poe squeezed her bruised knuckles.  It wasn’t just his grip on her sore fingers, but a javelin of invisible dark energy had pulsed out from him and felt like it had struck clear through her skull.

“Don’t do that,”  he warned, all of that buried softness gone.  “He said you would try to do that— _don_ _’t_.”

As she got a handle on the sudden pain and pushed it aside, she looked back at Poe.  Rey realized that he was wincing, too.  She wondered if part of whatever this dark manner of control was hurt him as well.  He was still holding her hand, though his grip lessened as the pain faded away.  His thumb ghosted across her knuckles and she felt it again—that almost imperceptible note of fear.

Rey lifted her hand slowly, so he wouldn’t think that she was trying to do anything untoward.  She pressed gently against his chest to feel the steady beat of his heart even underneath the thick fabric of his First Order uniform.  The real Poe was in there, somewhere.  She just had to figure out a way to find him that wasn’t going to kill them both.

“Tell him I understand.  I don’t want you to suffer either, Poe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of these I've tried to tell a small, contained story. This one.... I had _a lot_ of ideas for what I wanted to do. So I didn't give it an ending because I'd like to write it as a full blown story (eventually). I love this idea and I love doing crazy Force shenanigans.


	11. Barely Averted Disaster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Porg crack. I'm sorry. (but not really)

Porgs aren’t dense enough to trigger the motion sensor on the _Falcon_ _’s_ doors.  Rey notices just in time to use the Force to push one out of the way before it gets squished.

They’ve also taken to eating cables and Chewie has to carefully pry their little teeth away from the live wires without either shocking himself or roasting one of the critters.

Finn finds a blaster in one of their nests.  They had bounced up and down on it, pushing off the safety and raising the power level to critical.  The sort of thing one does as a last ditch effort before throwing it like a grenade at the enemy.  He carefully extracts it from the nest before it explodes.

It’s like the weird game of chicken—which makes sense because they’re birds.  Surely, they can’t be smart enough to know they’re daring death every moment they infest the old freighter.  Or maybe it’s some sick, twisted game the Force is playing.  Burn the ancient tree?  Take the sacred texts?  Release the Porgs!  That’ll teach those upstarts.

They’re too cute to eradicate.  Rey’s ready to launch them all out the airlock with the way they stare (almost hungrily) at Finn, but Poe stays her hand.  They’re just birds.  How bad could it get, really?  They’ll find a nice planet and chase ‘em off.  Real easy.

Poe’s plan works.  Almost.

There are porgs flapping and squawking as they’re cleared out of the _Falcon_.  Finn swats at them with a broom while Rey lifts them up with the Force and pushes them out the hatch.  Poe chases them until they fly away on their too-small wings because deep down he’s really a six-year-old.

“Beebee-ate?  Are you okay?”  Rey asks, looking up from sweeping more nest particles out of the _Falcon_.  She hears him beeping away in agitation.  He’s telling them to “Stop!  No!  Get out of there!”  But she can’t see quite what’s happening.

“No no no!!!”  Poe cries out and he runs— _sprints, dead on_ —across the space between where the _Falcon_ is resting and his X-Wing lifting off the ground.  Without him.

The X-Wing lurches to the side; its S-foils scrape the ground as it picks up and lifts into the air.  Poe is practically sobbing and biting his knuckles as they watch in horror.  Inside the cockpit’s canopy, they can see little tan and white bodies throwing themselves around.

“Rey!  Rey!  Do something!”  Poe yells, having fallen to his knees like he’s in physical agony.

Finn appears behind her and he’s not as panicked as Poe, but he’s duly distressed over what’s happening.  There’s a good chance the X-Wing is going to crash—and hopefully it won’t be into them.  “Yeah, Rey, _use the Force_!”

She groans and rolls her eyes at both of them.  A few chaotic critters and suddenly both her friends are completely useless.  Rey goes back inside the _Falcon_ and jumps into the seat in the cockpit.  Luckily, she has someone on the inside.

“Beebee-ate,”  she says as she puts the head set on,  “you have to take over control of the X-Wing.  Can you do that?”

There’s a quick, unsure beep, and then lots of excited whistling.

“Great!  I’ll help you pilot it back down once you get control.”  A smirk curls her lips as she looks out the viewport and sees the two men absolutely losing their minds.  “Though… we might have a little fun first.”

Outside, the X-Wing stabilizes, does a clean line across the sky before it turns around and heads back towards the _Falcon_.  Then it dives—straight for Poe and Finn.  Rey giggles inside the cockpit as she watches them jump up from the grass and run away.  She doesn’t even come _that_ close to them, just enough to give them a good rush of wind as the X-Wing flies by.  It arcs back up into the sky and makes one last pass before it settles back down on the ground.

BB-8’s powered down the X-Wing, and locked the controls good and tight to prevent anymore hijackings.  When Rey comes down the ramp of the _Falcon_ , swagger in her step, Poe’s already pulling up the canopy on the X-Wing and literally throwing porgs out of his ship.

So much for Poe Dameron, friend to creatures big and small.

“There’s so much porg shit in here!  How did they do this!  I’m going to have to burn all of this upholstery!”

BB-8 rolls up to Rey with a whistle that sounds like a chuckle.  She crouches down to share a little high-five with the droid.  “Good job, buddy.  Yeah, he’ll be upset for awhile… but now he knows what a dangerous, invasive species they are.”

Rey stands up and smiles at Finn, then grabs the cleaning spray and goes to help Poe try and flush the porg smell out of his fighter.  It’s not like she planned for this to happen.  No, she would _never_.


	12. Trapped in the Dark

Poe remembers the falling, but not the crashing.  He remembers the panic in BB-8’s beeps, but not quite what had preceded it.  Had he been shot down?  Atmospheric anomaly?  There are gaps in his memories of what brought him to this place.

It’s dark—that’s about all he can tell.  He’s still in his X-Wing.  He can feel the belts uncomfortably tight around him, strapping him into his seat—a seat which is tilted sideways.  A piece of metal has snapped off and is pressing into his leg, pinning it against the side of the cockpit at an awkward angle.  There are no lights on in the X-Wing.  No power; not even a hum of the backup battery for the emergency beacon.

“Beebee-ate?”  his voice croaks.  His throat is so dry it makes him wonder how long he’s been out of it.

No response.

Poe clings to the idea that maybe the droid already ejected and is rolling along where ever they are going to get help.  He tries not to think that maybe his ship is in several pieces and this tiny piece of cockpit he’s occupying might be the only thing intact.

He tries to take stock of his injuries, of what he can feel, because he can’t see a damn thing.  Obviously, he hit his head.  Dr. Kalonia is going to insist on bed rest for that alone.  She’ll shake her head at him and tell him human brains aren’t meant to take this kind of abuse.  Poe agrees because the fact that he can’t remember where he is or how he got here is far scarier than the wreck he’s trapped in.

His leg is pinned, but he doesn’t think it’s broken.  When he breathes, he recognizes the feeling of a couple cracked ribs, but that’s not so bad.  Internal bleeding would be a bummer, but he has no way of knowing if that’s currently a problem so he pushes that thought to the side.  He clenches and unclenches his hands—his joints and muscles are sore, but everything seems to be working.  There isn’t a whole lot of range of motion with the way the cockpit is sitting at an angle, but maybe he can wiggle his fingers towards the buckles and get himself out of here.

As he moves, the X-Wing shifts, violently.  It drops what feels like a whole meter and hits something—not the ground because now there’s a bit of a sway, like he’s hanging off of a tree, or a cliff.

Poe groans and feels sick.  The sudden movement, the sinking feeling of dangling over some unknown abyss—the concussion, too.  Can’t forget about that.  It’s all combining to make him have to work to keep down whatever it was he last ate.

“Beebee-ate?”  he calls again.  Still, no response.  Just the creaking of the metal around him.

He can feel reality slipping away again.  His pounding head is just too heavy to keep upright and his eyes can’t stay open anymore.  He bargains to just take a quick nap, then try again once he’s rested to figure this all out.

_Poe. **Poe.**_

“Hmm?”  He hums, resisting the pull of sleep for just one more second.  It sounds like someone is calling his name.  Soft and sweet at first, but then very insistent.

_Wake up, Poe.  I can_ _’t find you if you go back to sleep._

“M’head hurts,”  he grumbles.  He shifts slightly, as if he wants to snuggle up to the calming voice and just rest, finally.  But the craft shifts again and lurches with his subtle movements.  His heart skips a beat and thumps wildly in his chest, suddenly filled with another shot of adrenaline and the fear of falling.

_Yeah, just like that._

No, not just like that.  _That_ is the opposite of what he wants.  At least now he’s not about to pass out right away, but he’s stuck between the terror of not keeping absolutely still and the want to claw his way out of this death trap.

“Rey?”  he asks out loud.  That voice had sounded an awful lot like her, but that’s just crazy.  He’s out here (where ever here was) alone, and he doesn’t think he’s hearing her with his ears.  “I must have hit my head harder than I thought.”

When the voice doesn’t respond, Poe accepts that he’s imagining things.  There are worse things to think about as his life literally hangs in the balance.  Thinking about Rey and her pretty smile and the way the wind always tosses those few strands of hair out of her bun and into her face.  She has that Jedi-scavenger look going, and he hasn’t ever really thought of calves as that attractive before, but hers are.  He’s seen her once, practicing with her staff, and the muscles of her back and arms flexing with each fluid movement.

There’s something incredibly hot about a woman who could probably bench press him.

_Poe, I need you to **focus**.  On something else._

“Pretty rude.  Interrupting a man’s last fantasy.”

_Can you picture where you are?_

“No, Rey-in-my-head, it’s pitch black.”  He’s not sure why he keeps talking back to the imaginary voice, but it’s better than weighing the odds on how much jostling what’s left of his X-Wing can take before it falls again.

She’s silent for awhile, and Poe can’t blame her.  Or maybe he’s drifted back off, though he doesn’t remember falling asleep again.  He licks his lips, still tasting the dried blood, and realizing the quiet peril of dehydration.  The hunger pains roll together with all the rest of the pain in his body, but water—he desperately needs a drink.

_Hold on, Poe._

Her voice again, overriding the pessimistic thoughts with her firm resolve.  He’s trying, but he’s lost the energy to think about how to get out of this box.  The last ditch idea of just flailing about to shake it loose and deal with whatever comes next could work, but his arms are too heavy now.  Eyelids, too.  So much effort.

With his eyes closed, he thinks again about Rey and the wisps of hair flying in her face.  He thinks about how he’d like to pull her hair free from those buns and run his fingers through it.  He thinks about her eyes, how they’re always so wide with wonder and how they squint when she laughs.  And her lips, soft and pink and perfectly shaped.

Poe almost feels guilty because she’s young and at the start of her journey.  She’ll be a great Jedi and save the galaxy.  And he’s old, and at the end of his.  Just a fighter jock who took one too many risks, but he would have liked to kiss her once before the end.  Tell her she was pretty, and strong, and kind of scary, but in a good way.

There’s a warm feeling that creeps through his chest.  It feels strange, almost embarrassed, and it makes him grin before his mind slips away again.

 

When he wakes up next, it’s to beeping: familiar, excited, concerned whistling and whirring.

“Yes, yes, I see.  He’s not too far up, but we’ll have to be careful getting him out.”  Rey’s voice, but not in his head this time.  Poe hears her with his ears.

He tries to open his eyes, but there’s all these bright lights everywhere and it sends a searing pain through his skull.  He pinches his lids shut and doesn’t try to open them again.

Though he can’t quite seem to concentrate well enough to follow the conversations around him, he can feel his body letting him relax at the idea that maybe he won’t die out here.  Unless it’s another trick of his mind, like Rey’s voice in his head.  He realizes it’s not a trick when his rescuers are literally cutting him out of his decimated starfighter.  The loud noises of the laser cutters and shaking of the craft are wreaking havoc on his head and his bones.

“Can’t you give him something?”  Rey asks.  “He’s in a lot of pain.”

He is, but he’s not entirely sure how _she_ knows that.  Maybe he’s moaning, though he was trying not to be a baby about it.  Either way, he enjoys the sweet relief when someone presses a hypospray into his skin.

“Rey,”  he rasps as they load him onto a stretcher.  He can hear the hum of engines nearby, but he still doesn’t open his eyes, not until he hears her voice above him.

“I’m here, Poe.”

His eyes crack open slightly, wincing in this still too-bright lights.  “You’re so pretty.  And smart.  And if you ever wanted to kick my ass, I’d let you.”  Poe feels that warming sensation in his chest again and he can just barely see the blush dusting her cheeks.

“How much did you give him?”  she asks quietly to the medic that’s somewhere behind him.

After they’ve got him in the transport and hooked up to all sorts of monitors and bags of fluid, Rey settles into a seat next to him.  She takes out a warm rag and starts wiping his face.  Poe’s body doesn’t quite have the energy to shudder at the amount of blood she’s cleaning off of him, but it’s a sobering reminder of just how close he came.

“Rey,”  he says her name again.  He wants to tell her how she saved him.  How he easily could have died out there, but it was her voice that kept him going.

“You need your rest,”  she tells him with a stern look.  _We_ _’ll talk about this_ ** _later._**

Poe blinks at her.  He hears her, but her lips aren’t moving.  So maybe his swollen brain hadn’t been making it all up.  He wonders, though, because the last time someone was in his head, it had felt very different.  Not this warm, fuzzy comfort—the kind that makes him want to snuggle in close and see what a vacation feels like.  He looks at her lips, thinks again about how sweet it would be to kiss those lips.  Marvels at what her tongue might taste like.

Flushing an ever deepening shade of red, Rey huffs and goes back to her task.  Poe doesn’t really understand how any of this works, though he half-expects her to close out this connection she’s opened up.  He’s pleasantly surprised that it persists as he still feels that warm feeling spreading out from his chest and tingling along his extremities.

“I knew you’d be trouble.”

“Me?  Never.”  Poe almost laughs, but it comes out as a groan and she gives him another warning look.  He concedes and doesn’t try to move or speak anymore.  As his eyes close, this time knowing he’s going to find rest and wake up later in much better circumstances, he thinks about how thankful he is that Rey found him.  That she trusted enough in her ability, that she believed in him enough to look.

_You_ _’re welcome._


	13. Swimming

Yavin IV, to Rey, seemed like an obvious choice for where they should flee to after Crait.  Too obvious.  But they had friends here, and resources they would be able to acquire.  The hope was that the First Order was just as crippled as they were.  With any luck, they could get what they needed and get out before their enemies caught up to them.

This planet, though, it was gorgeous.  Rich, green jungle full of animals and birds and beautiful vegetation.  Crystal blue waters in rivers and waterfalls spilling into pools full of fat, vibrantly colored fish.  Rey had thought the island of her dreams was paradise, but maybe it was this place instead.  There wasn’t quite the same oppressive weight of responsibility; she didn’t come here with any massive goals like learn the entire Jedi history and wrangle a grumpy old man.

In that way, Yavin was far more peaceful than Ahch-To.  Especially this lovely watering hole she’d found.

Rey hung her clothes up on a branch to dry out after she’d waded through the streams to find this pool.  She just had to put her feet in—there weren’t places like this on Jakku, and the water on Ahch-To had been far to cold to go splashing around in.  Plus, she had been a serious Resistance fighter on a very important mission at that time, but now…  Now, she could escape her responsibilities for a little while.  There really wasn’t much for her to do here.  Poe and Leia were meeting with the locals to shore up resources and recruits; Finn was helping with Rose and the others who were injured.  Rey did a lot of standing around, so instead, she went exploring.

She carefully padded out into the pool, not wanting to step on any bottom dwelling critters or jagged rocks.  The bottom was mostly squishy mud that sloped downward until it was nearly covering her chest.  Swimming was still a fairly new skill, so she didn’t want to take too many chances in potentially deeper water.  Cautiously, she tested diving under the water and kicking her feet, waving her arms around.

Rey laughed as she popped back up above the water, splashing about.  She decided, if she ever lived someplace after all this was over, she wanted it to be someplace like Yavin.  Warm and with lots of calm little pools to swim in.

She was pulled out of her moment of careless joy by the sound of whistling—a _person_ whistling.  Rey hadn’t even noticed she was now on the opposite side of the pool, father than she wanted to be from her things.  Namely, her clothes.

The whistling ended with a splash.  Whoever it was, was now in the water with her.  Quiet afternoon swim decidedly ruined.  Maybe she could just skirt along the edge.  If they stayed underwater and swam around, perhaps she could avoid them altogether.

“Rey?  Is that you?”

Of course not.  She recognized the voice and she felt her skin heating to a bright crimson that had nothing to do with the sun.

“Poe!”  she said, surprise in her suddenly high-pitched voice.  She crouched down, trying to keep the water above chest level.  Though Poe didn’t seem to have a problem with modesty as he was standing nude in barely waist deep water.  If he took one step back, she would know him quite a bit better than she was prepared to at that moment.  “What are you doing out here?”

“Uh…”  He grinned as he glanced around at everything surrounding them.  “I live here.”

“Right.”  Rey groaned internally and rubbed her hands across her face before instinctively wrapping her arms around her chest.  Maybe if she asked him politely to _go away,_ she could quickly escape and die of embarrassment elsewhere.

“Are you _skinny_ dipping?”  he asked, cheeky grin wide on his face.

“No!”  she shot back defensively.  And she wasn’t, not really.  She still had on a small, very white undershirt that was now clinging rather immodestly to her skin, and her panties.  Also white.  Also very clingy.  “I was enjoying a nice, _private_ swim, and you’ve interrupted it.”

“Really?  You can swim?  Where’d you learn to do that on Jakku?”

Though he wasn’t teasing in his tone, rather genuinely curious, she was not in the mood to explain all the different skills she’d picked up since leaving the desert planet.  “Obviously _not_ on Jakku.”

“I can give you a few pointers, if you want,”  he said as he started moving through the water towards her.

“No, no, I think I got it,”  she said quickly.  “You just—stay on your side.”

“You want me to turn around so you can get dressed and get out of here?”

“Yes, please.”

“Okay,”  he responded with a chuckle and did what was offered.

Rey quickly pushed her way through the water and back towards the shore.  She caught quick glances of Poe to make sure he was rotating around.  Not that she was overly bothered if someone saw her in a state of undress.  Human-shaped mammals all looked relatively the same—it wasn’t like it was some big secret or expressly titillating.  Rey wasn’t sure if she wanted _him_ to see her undone like that.  Because she found his dark, wet, and wavy hair and very well-proportioned tanned body particularly titillating.

And that was quite enough.

She pulled her shirt over her head and yanked her trousers up quickly as she heard him start splashing away again in the water.  Foolishly, she glanced back out to see what he was doing and gasped as he had come back closer to the shore, though his back was still to her.

“Poe Dameron, I can see your arse.”  Rey wasn’t even sure why she felt compelled to say it out loud.  He was being audacious and he damn well knew it.

“Why you looking, sweetheart?”

Oh, she tried not to smile.  Pushed her lips together so fiercely it almost hurt.  “Don’t stay in too long, you’ll get all wrinkly.  Force knows you don’t need anymore of those,”  she said as she picked up her bag and made herself turn around and leave, her own saucy grin breaking across her face as she walked away.

“Hey!”  he called after her indignantly.  “Those are _laugh lines_!”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://rinskiroo.tumblr.com/).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Desert Son](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13658316) by [idrilhadhafang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang)




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